To get the map round the right way and bring back under one roof various streams of my writing.

Wednesday, April 19, 2017

escalation and emptiness, fear and confabulation... versus facts

Australian and other English language media have been – to say the least – excited about the Korean peninsula recently. There are several elements to this. The most exciting (apart from splashy/crashy missile tests) was the annual parade in the DPRK capital Pyongyang on 15 April, birth date of founding leader Kim Il-sung, grandfather of the present leader Kim Jong-un. Here I have embedded a video presentation from the New York Times. This gives quick mention of weapons on display, for more go to Stratfor.

(That video will probably be followed by another, with US President Trump speaking of how Chinese President Xi and his people "have been really interesting to be with." I take that comment at face value and as important. Trump learns such a lot from watching TV and hearing people around him, rather than going over formal briefing. The meetings with Xi were long and would (I think) have involved consecutive translations rather than simultatious translations. In that environment you have time to absorb, time to observe, time to consider what you say. Time to really learn about others. I am sure this meeting will have had a bigger impact than many others, for example with the King of Jordan or the British Prime Minister, let alone the skating, blabbing environment of phone calls, e.g. with the President of Turkey and Prime Minister of Australia.)

Recall in going through that stuff that President-elect Trump wanted a military parade at his inauguration. In retrospect, instead of people saying "oh no!" there might have been virtue in putting the whole order of battle (or at least the land and air based) on parade in Washington DC as the whole kaboodle of President, executive and legislature might still be standing there, with hands on breast to try to cope with hunger.

The DPRK's defence budget is estimated to be about USD10 billion. In February 2017 Trump called for the US defence budget to be increased by USD 70, to bring it to around USD600 billion. Lots of data here. (Bear in mind regarding that Trump budget bid (accompanied by proposals for dramatic cuts elsewhere) that the President may recommend but the Congress writes the budget.)

There is useful world defence historical and comparative data here. Note that the Russian defence budget of USD70 billion matches the Trump increase bid. Note also the relatively modest (for such a significant new world power) size of the Chinese defence budget.

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But to come back to the beginning, the DPRK's military parade, a couple of basic observations:

[1] despite the hysterical expectations of the DPRK going to war, the gathering of the military crown jewels to parade down the main street is rather more a sign that there is no expectation in the DPRK of real war now.
[2] the hysterical reporting misses the fact of the two months of joint US-ROK exercises, just completed. And this background report too. The various actions by the DPRK during this period must have been gold to those conducting the exercises.. real actions from the other side to be monitored in the south. As also the DPRK would have carefully monitored the electronic reactions on the southern side.

It is as obvious that you must move your carriers around all the time as it is obvious that they are vulnerable to prompt destruction in a major war... and also obvious that when you move a carrier it produces new policy, either because you wanted to produce new policy or because you hadn't thought about that. And so it is that the Nimitz is also setting sail from Washington State for the western Pacific today. This reflects Obama, not Trump.

It may be that Russia sought to interfere with the US presidential elections in 2016.

It is very plain that the US has interfered in ROK presidential elections in 2017, confecting crisis, bringing pressure to urge people to vote on the conservative side, avoid candidates who give priority to talking with Pyongyang. In this I can see the engines of established hard line American policy, but I cannot see the sustained hard line solving the problems. Apart from establishing itself as an economic power, member of the G20, south Korea has continued with bumps and determination, to build a civil society, abandoning history of military dictatorship. This means the usual uncertainties of democracy, but also possibilities of peace on the peninsula not available with continued military pressure.

A resolution of the Korean problem can only be secured in discussions between Seoul and Pyongyang and mutual dismantling of military assets. A concept of the US doing what Seoul and Pyongyang want. A resolution of the Korean problem will produce many new positive opportunities in this region in which Russia, China, Korea and Japan sit. Projected dominant power by the US does not fit with that.

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Let's conclude with a clip from Dr Strangelove ... but remember this is only a fiction of course.

Stanley Kubrick wrote, produced and directed this film shortly after the Cuban Missile Crisis.

this (in 2017) is a new blog...

The word 'cephalophoria' suggested itself to me, is my own invention, as meaning "love of free mindedness". St Denis, my name saint who apparently could not spell, probably a common enough thing in the third century CE, was a cepalophore. That is a member of a small group of christian saints who somewhat prior to the manner of M Python, carried on doing what they were doing after their heads were cut off. Much impressing ladies for a bit, see here and below, St Denis on the wall of Notre Dame de Paris heading out of town after an encounter with the unwilling.

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I have worked through a number of blogs since 2000. I have had some eight domain names registered for different projects, of which only 'A Place of Info' remains. It resides in a storage space at ipower.com, on an internet superhighway in the USA. That storage space contains legacy folders of such projects previously 'live' with their own domain names. Here are two of them:

St Denis de Paris

A case of severe independent-mindedness - a cephalophore - heading out of Paris still preaching to closely admiring women, after an encounter with the unwilling circa 250CE. (image borrowed from Cool Stuff in Paris of Manning Leonard Krull, click on photo.)